It is my confident assertion that one cannot create great art in squalid conditions. If you want to inspire someone to excel themselves and produce marvels, you have to pamper them. Pour them fine wine, feed them good food, let them sit in comfort and relax. Then you will get works of true genius. If you doubt me look at what little was achieved in the Butcher Lane Dining Rooms.

The dining rooms can be found at the Ropewalk end of Butcher Lane and they are only a couple of streets away from the Warrens. It is not a select area; nor one likely to produce a discerning clientele. I have avoided eating there. It is not the place I would enter to meet a patron, but occasionally one is looking for somebody and it that means the dining rooms, then so be it.

I remember on one occasion talking…